


Ambience.

by Kasimere



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Character Study, Existentialism, Gen, Introspection, Stream of Consciousness, Whirl thinks too hard, what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasimere/pseuds/Kasimere
Summary: Scritchy scratchy feelings and thoughts that tapped on the inside of his helm without asking permission first.





	Ambience.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2017 on my phone in the bar at TFN. Go figure.

Ambience brings a certain sort of grounding, life that goes on around you, all that stupid shit that could be flowery and poetic if you look at it the ‘right’ way. Although, when it came to right versus wrong, Whirl’s perception was already a little bit askew (or so he’d been told), to him this ‘right’ way was complete and utter bollocks. 

Nah, no, to him it was- ambience- absolutely unbearable. Stuff that makes it massively obvious that the universe is turning, linear time as a concept is very much real (real enough), and the cosmic forces don’t give two shits that you’re forced to stagger around waiting for reality (or just your reality) to just… stop. 

Yeah, see, in these quiet times. Wherein the lights are off and the ship is mostly silent, these times, oh, these times were the stuff of nightmares. Plate crawling silences that stretched on and on. Allowing the hum of the engines to speak up and drown out all the nice little thoughts in Whirl’s helm. Genuine good thoughts.All these nice little thoughts that’d only cropped up recently. Friends? Maybe! Watchmaking? A possibility! Purpose? Shit, son, could be it! But, see, these good thoughts were bad thoughts because they made the actual bad thoughts, much worse. 

Scritchy scratchy feelings that tapped on the inside of his helm without asking permission first (but that hadn’t stopped anyone before). It was horrible, gaining a little more clarity because he realised he could feasibly be kinda, sorta, happy- for maybe two whole minutes- it had dawned on how incredibly unhappy he was. 

Unhappiness had been such a normal thing to be for so long, a whole package deal. The comfy, the familiar feeling of despair next to that good ol’ dread and (poorly) repressed fear had rested so complacently under the constant overwhelming anger aimed at everything and nothing. 

Sometimes he thought about those sweeps, and how back then there hadn’t been any muddled feelings, no ambient sounds of life and existence happening outside him. Mainly, because there’d been nothing ‘round for miles (or so he thought), and life can’t make ambient small talk if it ain’t there. With a lack of lucidity that had been so sweet back then, he could’ve burned himself to cinders and he wouldn’t have to be here now, thinking about it now, freaking out about now. It loomed behind him like a dark, existential Ultra Magnus. 

Except Ultra Magnus wasn’t a feeling. He was a bot, a bot inside a bot inside a bigger bot. With feelings and thoughts, and he was real, and a mech, with a spark and… Whirl’d be damned to admit it out loud but he liked the guy. 

Feelings. Yeah. For a long time Whirl didn’t have feelings of regret, still didn’t, not really. Now though, he could see parts, parts of his life- where he should’ve (maybe) felt it. Rung’d see this as progress, but he saw it as a reason to roll his optic and desperately think about something else. 

Like the sounds of laughter from the corridor. Whoever they were, he hoped that something would come along and make that laughter hollow and broken. Well… nah, not really, he wanted to hope that but his spark- it just didn’t completely share the sentiment. The unhappiness of others didn’t get him the way it used to, shit, sometimes it even made him feel a little bit worse than normal. 

This all felt too much like waking up from a long sleep. But he’d fallen asleep with both a head and hands, a dream job and a bright(ish) future. Now awake again, he found himself with none of those things, (“and that’s okay, you’re not broken” Eyebrows smiles, his spark stutters). Everything good had been stolen by a nightmare that was blurry and unfocused, now there and not there at the same time. He was awake now, but what his optic closed, what if he slept, and existence moved around again around him and took it all away? All these new shiny things he refused to think about because if he did, he thought about this shit too- and then he thought he couldn’t stop this, he’d never be able to stop it and existence, and, and, and, and, and-

See. If he was in Swerves right now, or watching a film, or shooting some asteroids, maybe killing some cons. Fuck, maybe even socialising or making a shitty, basic chronometer… he wouldn’t be thinking of this shit. If there was noise, if there was something other than the fucking ambience. 

Fuck it.

**Author's Note:**

> I stopped reading the comic by like... the third Lost Light issue? I vaguely know about the ending (Mostly just Whirl, because he's all I cared about), I might come back and edit this properly. But I'm switching phones so I decided to throw this at a fandom I don't really think I can count myself a part of anymore-- still have several posters of my boy Whirbybirb tho <3 
> 
> (PS. I'll come back to format and edit properly later, I got work in the morning and I realised I clenched my jaw so bad for the last hour I'm in pain. lol)


End file.
